‘Leaked Footage’ of Russia-Ukraine War? No, Viral Video is From Afghanistan

The video from 2011 shows US military personnel in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

A 12-minute-long video showing heavy firing and blasts across a sandy landscape, with military personnel appearing to detect and defuse explosives while training is going viral on social media platforms, claiming to show "leaked footage of heavy war" between Russia and Ukraine.

The claim comes amid the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

However, the video dates back to 2011 and shows US military personnel in Kandahar, Afghanistan conducting a military operation named 'Operation Creature Pan Kalay,' along with Afghan soldiers.

CLAIM

The video is being shared to claim that it shows leaked footage of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

This post by Facebook user 'Ishaa Noor' was viewed more than 2.8 lakh times at the time of writing this article.

Archived versions of more posts with the same claim on social media can be seen here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

While watching the video, at 7:44 minutes, we can see a name plate appears.

The title reads: "B-Roll: Operation Creature Pan Kalay" and mentions "319th MPAD unit" at the bottom. The location in the plate reads: "COP Talukan, Kandahar, Afghanistan".

Again, at 7:50 minutes, we could see the flag of Afghanistan.

Taking cues from here, we conducted a keyword search with 'Operation Creature Pan Kalay' and found a video uploaded on YouTube by a user in 2012.

We also found the video on the website of Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS), that comes under the US' Department of Defense. The video was taken on 29 December 2011, it read.

Next, we searched for 'Pan Kalay' on DVIDS and found the video titled 'Part 1: Operation Creature Pan Kalay' and multiple frames matched with that of the viral video.

(Note: Swipe right to have a look at the comparisons)

The description of the video said, "Afghan Army plan and execute a mission to find weapons cache at a Taliban stronghold."

Clearly, an old video of US military operation in Afghanistan is being shared falsely claiming that it is from the Russia-Ukraine war.

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